Alberta premier Alison Redford, affectionately known by many as Premier Mom, has been less available to the media than a certain disappearing Chinese vice-president this summer. It’s little wonder that modern politicians, such as Redford, avoid talking to the media at all costs: In the age of the Internet and 24-hour cable news channels, interactions between politicians and the press have become a game of cat and mouse, in which the media try to catch elected officials saying something stupid to turn into sensationalistic headlines that will fuel another news cycle.

Hey, maybe we can get Toronto mayor Rob Ford to confuse Winnipeg with Windsor; perhaps we can catch Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney saying 47% of the population will vote for Obama no matter what.

People have a right to know what their elected representatives are up to. With the tightly scripted public-relations machines that control everything coming out of politicians’ mouths these days, an off-the-cuff comment may be our only means to glean some insight into what these people are actually thinking. But it also has the effect of pushing our elected officials even further from the citizens they are supposed to represent.

Sure, Premier Redford took a vacation, made trips to China and the U.K., and was forced to deal with Peter Lougheed’s death over the last few months. But Edmonton Journal columnist Graham Thomson laments that she is still playing coy with the fourth estate:

“It was the first time in weeks we had a chance to ask her a few questions afterwards,” he recently wrote. “However, as soon as she had finished speaking, Redford made a beeline for the exit, leaving a flock of reporters and camera crews behind pleading for a few minutes of her time.” Once the premier realized the optics of her exit, she agreed to talk to the press — for a full six-and-a-half minutes.

It’s one thing for a politician to avoid the media in this age of gotcha journalism — especially in the summer months when the legislature is out of session and nothing of importance seems to happen in this country. But the cone of silence permeates throughout the Alberta government.

A recent survey conducted by independent academic researchers for Newspapers Canada graded the openness and transparency of governments throughout the country based on their willingness to disclose government documents through freedom of information requests. Alberta earned a B for speed of disclosure, but got a D when it came to the completeness of the disclosures.

In other words, the government will respond to you fairly quickly, it just won’t tell you anything. In one instance, the report notes that “Alberta Solicitor General and Public Security took 60 days to release records that were so severely severed as to have no useful information in them.”

The Alberta government has a history of promising greater transparency and failing to deliver. Former-premier Ralph Klein introduced the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act in 1994, but ended up winning an award for running the most secretive government in Canada in 2005. His predecessor, Ed Stelmach, campaigned on greater transparency, but failed to make any significant inroads.

During last fall’s PC leadership contest and the general election in the spring, Redford also campaigned on making government more open. Although she has announced a plan to require MLAs to disclose their expenses, the policy leaves much to be desired. As with previous attempts to bring greater openness and accountability to the Alberta government, Redford’s actions seem to be little more than a distraction.

The problem is a prevailing view among our political class that government information belongs to them, instead of the people whose name they are supposed to be working in. When it comes to Premier Mom — who supports everything from mandatory-helmet laws to prohibitions on cell-phone use while waiting in a drive-thru — it’s hard to believe her secretiveness doesn’t have something to do with her paternalistic view of the state’s relationship with society. Why does Premier Mom do what she does? Because she said so, that’s why.

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